But he liked the aijiin of Malguri the way he’d liked the old couple with the grandchildren, touring together, he supposed, looking for adventures… maybe not cohabiting: nothing guaranteed that.
And long as paidhiin had been on the continent, they had discovered no graceful way to ask, through atevi reticence to discuss their living arrangements, their addresses, their routines or their habits—it all fell under ‘private business,’ and no one else’s.
He thought he might ask Jago. Jago at least found amusement in his rude questions. And Jago was amazingly well read. She might even know the historic couple.
He missed Jago. He wouldn’t have had a near-fight with Banichi if Jago had been here. He didn’t know why Banichi had insisted on inviting himself to supper, if he had to spend it in a surly mood.
Something hadn’t gone well, perhaps.
In a day which had included Cenedi shooting a man and that man turning out to be one Banichi knew—damned right something hadn’t gone right today, and Banichi had every reason to be in a rotten state of mind. That atevi didn’t show it and habitually understated the case didn’t mean Banichi wasn’t upset—and didn’t mean Banichi might not himself wish Jago were here. He supposed Banichi hadn’t had a good time himself, having a surly human displaying an emotional load an atevi twelve-year-old wouldn’t own to.
He supposed he even owed Banichi an apology.
Not that he wanted to give one. Because he understood didn’t mean he was reconciled, and he wished twice over that Jago hadn’t gone to Shejidan today, Jago being just slightly the younger, a little more reticent, as he read her now, even shy, but just slightly more forthcoming than Banichi once she decided to talk, whether Jago was more so by nature or because Tabini’s man’chi didn’t lie lightly on anyone’s shoulders, least of all Banichi’s.
His eyes stung with reading in the flickering light; keeping the fire lively enough to cast light to the chair made the fireside uncomfortably warm, and the oil lamps made the air thick. He found himself with a mild headache, and got up and walked, quietly, so as not to disturb the staff, into the cooler part of the room—too restless to sleep, yet.
He missed his late-night news. He missed being able to call Barb, or even, God help him, Hanks, and say the things he dared say over lines he knew were bugged. He was all but down to talking to himself, just to hear the sound of human language in the silence, to get away, however briefly, from immersion in atevi thoughts and atevi reasoning.
A motor started, somewhere. He stopped still and listened, decided someone was leaving the courtyard and going down to the town, or somewhere in between, and who that was, he had a fair notion.
Damn, he thought, and went to the window, but one couldn’t see the courtyard from there because of the sideways jut of the front hall. A pin held the latch of the side window panels, and he pulled that to see if he could tell whether the car was going down the main road or off into the hills, or whether he was about to trigger a nonhistorical security alarm by opening the latch.
Only the airline transport van, hell. Malguri had a van of its own. Food and passengers came up the road. They could have gotten him from the airport.
But Banichi had thought otherwise, perhaps. Perhaps he wanted to sound things out before relying on Cenedi.
Perhaps he still had his doubts.
The sound of the motor went up and around the walls.
He couldn’t tell. But the night air coming in was crisp and cold after the stuffiness of the room. He drew in a great breath and a second one.
First night he had been here that it hadn’t been raining, the first hour of full dark, and the sky above the lake and the mountains to the east were so clear and black and cold one could see Maudette aloft, faintly red, and Gabriel’s almost invisible companion, a real test of eyesight, on Mospheira.
The night air smelled wonderful, loaded with wildflowers, he supposed; and he hadn’t realized how he’d missed the garden outside his room; or how pent up he’d felt.